After importing and organizing, the story elements sit as clips in the library, ready for editing. The editing phase of the post-production workflow involves crafting a story from the library clips into a project or timeline.

The first edit, or rough cut, of a project involves some or most of the major tasks from the remainder of the post workflow. An edit of the project is created; it’s trimmed down for timing, pacing, and conciseness; additional elements such as music may be added; and then the project is shared out of Final Cut Pro for client or producer approval.

You are ready to embark on the post workflow with the Lifted project. In this lesson, you will assemble the interview sound bites and the helicopter B-roll to form the story. You’ll trim the edits to remove any extraneous content, and then add a music clip. Lastly, you will export this first edit of the project as a file that is playable on a Mac, PC, smartphone, or tablet.

Reference 4.1 Understanding a Project

The editing phase occurs in a project—a timeline-based container of sequentially arranged clips that tell a story. Projects are simple or complex timelines, depending on the technical depth of the story.

Projects are stored within individual events in a library: the super-container of your Final Cut Pro editing project that makes loading/unloading and transporting all your clips, events, and projects for a show, client, or movie much more convenient.

Events may contain as many projects as you need. For example, a news editor may need three projects for the VO (voiceover), the package, and the teaser. A documentary editor could easily use 10 to 30 projects when breaking down an edit by segment, creating a variety of video news releases, posting online teasers, and developing various versions of the documentary based on running time and/or content.

You already have the Lifted library with two events of clips. Let’s edit.

Exercise 4.1.1 Creating a Project

To start the first edit, you must create the project. A couple of clicks and you’ve got yourself a starting project.

In the Lifted library, Control-click (or right-click) the Primary Media event, and from the shortcut menu, choose New Project.